Emma Who Saved My Life

by Wilton Barnhardt

  Oh god.

  “I’m not kidding. Tell me yours and I’ll tell you mine.”

  It was fairly horrendous.

  “Not half as bad as mine, I promise.”

  I made the story short and sweet: Karen Schmitt, seventeen, last year of high school, senior picnic, drifted away from the class for a walk in the woods in which everyone whooped and yelled and figured we were both going to neck and hold hands and we surprised everyone and ourselves. Never saw her after I went off to Southwestern Illinois. Whole thing lasted five minutes tops. I’ve always wondered …

  “Wondered what?”

  Just sort of what happened to her, and whether she’s doing all right.

  Connie squeezed me closer. “She’s probably kicking herself for not holding onto you a little tighter, letting go of a good thing.”

  Doubt that.

  Yeah yeah, I know I know, she was laying it on thick, pumping me up, making me feel like I had a Place in the Universe, not to mention her life. I could reinterpret the whole thing, of course, and examine every statement and reduce it to motives and bedroom talk and insincerity and role playing, but please don’t make me do that. Let me cut my best deal with my memories—so few seem this warm and worth remembering.

  “Davie Epstein was my first. After the prom I told you about. I had … gee, I shouldn’t confess what a little snob I was, but I had this long-running schoolgirl fantasy that I was going to lose it with some upper-class WASP Harrrrrvad boy. I had the whole thing planned out, the lines, the look, the right dress. No one was going to know I was a middle-class girl from Brookline.”

  I didn’t assume she was middle class.

  “My father managed a watch and jewelry store. You could put the whole thing in this bedroom.”

  Would never have guessed. I picked her for a close friend of the Rockefellers.

  “Brookline, Massachusetts?”

  I’d never been. Her folks must be proud of her.

  “Not really. We don’t get along very well, but there are many people to blame for that, my sister, my brother. A long story and I’ll tell you sometime. Anyway. I had this fantasy. This blond achingly beautiful Ivy League prep-school boy, played by Robert Redford right? He was going to come along and find me irresistible—I look WASP don’t I? This wasn’t out of the question. So here was Davie, Davie who stayed to work in his father’s office, who didn’t go to college, who didn’t want me to go to Harvard, who figured correctly it would mean the end of our relationship if I went (and he was right), this Davie was all over me prom night. And so when he drove me home he got real fresh and I said no, and he said why not, and I said I was a good girl and … and, some shit, I was waiting until I was married or something. But he kept asking.”

  Did he get violent?

  She didn’t say anything for a while. “No. Not at all. He seemed defeated. He said that this was the last time together, I was going off to Harvard, we were through, he would have nothing, I would have everything. That kind of thing. He said…”

  In the dark I couldn’t tell what she thought of her own story.

  “… well, he said, he wanted to make love because that was all he had, and that he wanted to have a memory of me, something real since I was going away from him forever. He was a realist, that Davie.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “So, I thought about it and I said yeah, okay, and I stretched out in the backseat in this silly prom dress all pulled up. And he got out and undid his pants and entered me but it didn’t last or get anywhere, he couldn’t come or anything. And I just sat there with all this taffeta and dress material pulled up around me waiting for something to happen, to me, to him, just something.”

  Poor guy.

  Connie laughed ironically. “Our last date.”

  Yeah.

  “And to boot, his first poke was a goodie. I got blood all over my prom dress and I lived in fear of my mother seeing it. Oh what a mess, what a mess. Not an auspicious start.”

  Few people’s ever are, really. At least I think that’s right.

  “I wonder sometimes too,” she went on, rolling off me (it was getting hot), “what old Davie is up to. He’s married now, I know that. Sometimes I have this fantasy. When I go home to Brookline, picking up the phone and saying, hey Davie, kid, let’s take another crack at it, let’s turn an awful memory into a good time.” She held my arm firmly. “Do you think you can make up for the past, Gil? If I went back and we did it up right this time, wouldn’t that make up for it? Wouldn’t it kill the bad part of the story? Change everything?”

  Why don’t you do it?

  “Well. You know how impossible that would be. Why don’t you look up Karen Schmitt?” Then she laughed. “Go for ten minutes this time.”

  I laughed too. No, it would be impossible.

  “But poor Davie. We should be allowed in the world to go and clean up our messes, you know? I want to go back and tell Janie Johns in second grade I didn’t mean it when I said she was ugly. I should pick up the phone, call her, get it over with—she’d think I was an ass and maybe wouldn’t remember, but if she did … Connie’s a sentimental old thing, isn’t she?”

  Was this an example, I asked, of Jewish Guilt?

  She laughed. “Yep, I think so. It’s how we fill our evenings.”

  More dirty talk.

  “Tell me,” she picked up later, “about Emma in bed.”

  I said: oh what an evil question.

  “That’s half the fun, babe—talking about other lovers.”

  Do you want me to talk about you?

  “Don’t I stand up to scrutiny?”

  Yes yes, that is true.

  “So come on, spill the beans.”

  I should have given up the game here, right? Told her Emma was an obsession, but we never slept together. Been honest. Forthright. Sincere with this wonderful no-nonsense woman. I thought about it. Naaaaahhhhh … I told her Emma was miserable, a fraction as adept and passionate as Connie. Well, that’s what she was after wasn’t she?

  “Oh you’re just piling it on, Gil. I don’t believe a word.”

  Emma was totally cold, no kidding, I said. F-R-I-G-I-D. These last few months, I said, we hadn’t slept together at all. (Well that was true.)

  “Poor Gil. You’re not badly in love with her, are you?”

  I’m over her completely, I said.

  And you know, when I said that, it was TRUE. Sometimes saying something makes it official. Then again, sometimes saying something you think you feel makes you realize the opposite is true. After Connie and I made love a second time, and I spent more time seeing to her enjoyment, she collapsed beside me whispering, “Gil, I want you back here every night, 9:30 p.m. on the dot. Whoa baby…” Then she kissed my cheek. “Love ya, kid.” And I said, I love you too. And that was one of those times where saying something made it suddenly not true. I said it and the words echoed in the air-conditioned bedroom and they hung in the room as we went to sleep and the next morning as she made a first-class breakfast I remembered I had said them. Would they catch up with me? Oh my, poor young Gilbert, didn’t he know he had nothing to worry about? He was just one in a line of suitors and lovers and new adventures for Connie. Those words made no more impression than if I had mentioned the weather.

  But those other words. About Emma, when I said I was over her, those were true. I didn’t need to see her again. Never again. I ought to write her off. No that’s all silly. Be her friend, see her once in a while, sit there smugly when she asks you about Connie.

  “What are you looking so goddam smug for,” Emma asked eventually. I had called her temp agency and we had arranged to meet for a lunch at a slice-of-pizza place near Times Square.

  “You’ve gotten back with Connie, I know that. Every weekend, sex with the Capitalist America poster child. Does she write you a check or does she issue a money order? Do you have a stock option?”

  You’re jealous Emma. Connie is class, there’s no taking away from that—bitch aw
ay as you will. I care about Connie very much.

  Emma poured parmesan cheese over her slice, then peppers, then oregano. “From what you’ve told me,” she began, enunciating every word, “she will toss you aside when she’s through with you.”

  So? Everybody eventually gets tired of everybody (like me getting tired of Emma, I wanted to say). I’m having a good time now, the meals are great, I’m living like a king, hitting the good restaurants, nights at the theater, feeling good about myself.

  “It’s the sex, isn’t it? You surprise me Gil. I expected more out of you.” She sighed facetiously, barely summoning the energy to seem resentful. “I know someone perfect for you.”

  Yeah?

  “Jasmine. No, no kidding, you two would hit it off.”

  If we didn’t get arrested for drug possession first.

  “Hey don’t knock my roommate, she’s cool. Didn’t sell out like some roommates I could mention.” Pause. “Did I tell you I was thinking about getting a tattoo?”

  Fortunately that plan wasn’t realized. Abuse and all, I liked seeing Emma. It was obvious she was happier now, having a good time. Jasmine’s weekend band was called Kill the Rich. I got two passes to their next gig in the mail from Emma, and a follow-up phone call:

  “You know you want to come to CBGBs tonight. You know you don’t want to go back to those imperialist arms. Those silk sheets, Gil…”

  What about ’em, Emma?

  “Made by Taiwan slave-laborers. Her salary bonus? Due to investment in apartheid. Bet she buys her fruit straight from American companies in El Salvador.” She did her idea of how Connie talked: “‘This El Salvador? Could you kill a few laborers, spray a few villages with poisons, send out a few death squads and get some bananas, huh?’”

  Are you quite through?

  “Next time she takes you up to Montauk—how was that by the way?”

  Great, of course.

  “Next time she takes you up to Montauk, just think how her money is connected to torturers in South America—electric cattle prods on testicles, Gil! CIA!”

  Bye-bye, Emma—

  “Workers unite! Revolution forever!”

  CLICK. I guess you hang around a group called Kill the Rich long enough and you end up talking that way too.

  Sometimes I thought Emma was right, Connie and I weren’t long for the world. But then we’d have a week when I’d see her every night. Like all affairs, it had its mild ups and downs …

  “Honey, you just never run out of steam do you? Connie’s had a long day at the commodity bureau and she’s not quite ready for gymnastics this early in the evening. Why don’t you take me out for a change? A nice big dinner?”

  And other times, I couldn’t have scripted a more perfect affair.

  “Some more claret? Of course, you’ll have some. So you’re sure you can get the weekend off? Good, that’s good because I think we need a little sojourn to Quebec City. I’ll speak the French, you sit there and tell me how well I speak it.”

  You got it.

  “We’ll take the night train, get a private compartment.” She looked up from over the glass of claret she held with both hands. “Ever done it on a train? Romantic, let me tell you. In France one time…”

  Another story, another facet of Connie, one more reason to utterly ignore my career—who needed a fulfilling job, the audition hassles, the pain of finding work at another theater? Naw, I’ll just play this out until it ends and enjoy it while I can. Throw myself into work and finding a new theater when we go our separate ways … do you suppose, I’d ask myself, that this might just go on forever? Could it work? Like both of us moving in together, living in sin? What a couple we’d be—the oddness of our romance made for … well, more romance.

  “I’m having a party, kid,” Connie announced. “Full of Wall Street types, guys at work, bores, but some nice ones in the crowd too. Very important strategy—show yourself as the woman who can cook, entertain, work a full day, pull it off without a thought…”

  Give that woman our toughest account! She’s a marvel!

  “You’ve got it, Gil. So, I want you to come. Suit and tie—well, a sport jacket. And not that ratty thing you call a sport jacket. I swear I’m going to dress you head to toe one day, when I make a million and have it to burn.”

  I approached and hugged her, tickling her a bit. I’d rather she undressed me.

  “Ha, not tonight, please.”

  She had said that last night.

  “Like I’m just saving you from my period and all kinds of nastiness down there at the moment.”

  I didn’t care.

  “Trust me. When Connie’s female problems clear up, we’ll make up for lost time. But first my party. Why don’t you bring a theater friend or two.”

  Yuck. I see them all the time.

  “I want to bohemianize the party a bit, liven it up.”

  I say as a joke: how about Emma? That would liven it up.

  “Why not Emma? There’s an idea…”

  Remember folks, I ASKED FOR IT.

  If I told Emma to come she wouldn’t. If I told her not to come, she would insist. If I kept the invitation secret, and she found out (Connie mails her one, phones her up) then she’d come and be mad. What to do? I opt, next time I see her, for: Connie’s having a party. Full of business types. Want to come?

  “Was I invited?” Emma looked astonished.

  Yes.

  “Let me get this one straight,” she said, crossing her arms. “She invited me to her respectable cocktail party? I think I know what she’s up to. Compare and contrast. Watch Emma stumble around and feel out of place, show how little class she has.”

  Yep that was probably it, but I said: nonsense. She just wants to meet you, after all the millions of stories I’ve told, good things I’ve said about you.

  “Uh-huh. Whatever you say. Tell her I’ll be there.”

  I decided to spend the day with Emma, hoping she’d change her mind. We went back to Brooklyn Heights to find Sal’s Diner again. Sal and the waitress welcomed us back, asked us why we didn’t come around all the time, where’d we been, huh? It’d been about a year since I’d seen Sal’s—it was a bit sad-making, for we used to eat there every other night. Sal’s was eternal; they would be grinding away for their paycheck long after we’d packed our bags, the waitress would be wearing that checkered top and wiping tables with that rag twenty years from now.

  “Ran into the worst snob the other day at work,” Emma began. “He asked me if I was BBQ.”

  BBQ?

  “Stands for Brooklyn, Bronx or Queens. There’s a secretary at United Agencies where I’m temping. Loud, nasal accent, named Shirley, wears tight sweaters, dresses two years out of style. This guy at the watercooler watches her walk by and says, ‘Very, very BBQ.’ I wanted to put his head in the cooler.”

  I told Emma how when I tell people I live in Hell’s Kitchen, way down on 45th Street, I get looks of sympathy.

  “I’m getting fed up with the rich in this town. They’re the one’s who’ve made the rents so impossible, and then look down their noses at the people who had to flee to the goddam slums just to stay here.”

  Yes, she’ll meet plenty of these types at Connie’s party.

  “God, I miss this part of Brooklyn,” said Emma. “I want our old house again with Mrs. Dellafini. I want my windowseat back—it’s the last time I wrote anything good…” She looked at me directly. “Whadya think? The three of us again?”

  Lisa wouldn’t go for it, I have my doubts, and you know good and well you drove us crazy (not to mention yourself crazy) and it would all happen all over again—

  “Just indulging in a little nostalgia, that’s all,” she said, looking down in her coffee. “I’m having a blast with our band anyway. Last night, Cock, he’s the bass player—”

  Our band? I interrupted.

  Emma rolled her eyes, laughing. “Oops, that was a slip, delusions of grandeur. Jasmine’s band. But I get to read poetry in the break.
People love it. I mean, I change my tone a bit. For that crowd you can make it up as you go along—as long as you say ‘fuck’ and ‘shit’ a lot, sound like Bukowski.” She did some impromptu punk poetry: “Life is like a turd/a fucking turd…”

  A little quieter, please.

  “It’s great, they love me. I’d probably sell more this way than if I try being a poet the respectable way.”

  Yeah, but it’s not great poetry is it?

  “I don’t see you on Broadway this season, so I wouldn’t criticize.” (That was a sharp remark I wish she hadn’t said.) “You told me after that jerk guy said you had no future at the Venice that you’d be gone by the summer, and here it is fall and you’re still there. ‘Can I get your coffee, Mr. Schmeen?’”

  I’m looking for new work, I said stiffly.

  She pointed her coffee spoon at me. “No you’re not. You know what you’re doing? Having sex. All the time. Day and night. I’m, at least, still in the ballgame here, still trying to get somewhere…”

  I changed the subject. You were telling me about Cock.

  “Cock the bass player, yes. You know why he’s called Cock?”

  Why?

  Emma smiled and rubbed her hands together. “Jasmine used to go out with him but said she had trouble walking the next day. She’s trying to set us up. Figures if the celibacy goes by the boards, it might as well go out in style.”

  I change the subject again. What’s all this about you in some new group therapy thing?

  “I go to this group on Fridays,” she told me eagerly, “since the Celibacy Support Organization folded—I’m the last original member. Anyway, this new group is about twelve to fifteen, and we sit around trying to make ourselves happy. Naturally, I’m near-suicidal coming out of there every Friday night. I see these losers who are sitting there thinking the same thing of me. One man cries every session, he can’t tell his children he loves them, he can’t show affection, blah blah blah, he has all this self-loathing. I sit there thinking, thank god I’m not the WRECK you are. But next month the session shifts to me and my life and I’m sure I’ll cry and carry on just like he does. It’s a performance in a way.”

  If you think that, I said, why not quit, save your time.